


the kind of magic you aren't supposed to write home about

by skittidyne



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Bickering, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 04:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13159218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skittidyne/pseuds/skittidyne
Summary: Shigeru kicks the door shut behind him after another particularly nasty gust. He stays still, otherwise, scanning the homey, cozy interior. Everything is painted in soft oranges, flickering shadows dancing as if to welcome him, and once his nose begins to thaw he thinks he smells hot cocoa. This could be a wet dream of his for how tired and cold he’d been.But Kyoutani Kentarou, sitting cross-legged on the bed with an angry scowl and a wand pointed right at him, is certainly not part of that fantasy.(( or: shigeru means to spend the night alone in a cabin in the woods, but ends up instead half snowed in with one kyoutani kentarou, which isnotaccording to plan ))





	the kind of magic you aren't supposed to write home about

**Author's Note:**

  * For [preciouscrowchild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciouscrowchild/gifts).



> (( this is a (late) holiday present to the ever-amazing [corvid](https://preciouscrowchild.tumblr.com/)! i hope you enjoy it & the holidays were especially wonderful to you~ ))

Shigeru is late this year.

He will _absolutely_ and _gladly_ blame Chikara and Kenji for holding him up, well-intentioned as they (well, Chikara) were, so the sun is already setting and the wind is beginning to pick up by the time the cabin comes into view. Snow is still falling thickly, fluffy and fat and pretty if it weren’t coming down squarely on his head, and he’s been wading through waist-high drifts for over an hour now already. He’s very, very tired of the trip and the snow and the fact that it’s already quite dark.

But the cabin is in view, and that means he can shrug off his wet clothes, and unpack his heavy bags, and enjoy a few hours to warm up in front of the fireplace before he has to wade out into the snow once more.

He thinks it’s a trick of the setting sun, the way the windows glint orange. But Shigeru is in too much of a hurry to get someplace where his fingers won’t freeze off to care.

He draws an unlocking charm in the air as he waddles through the thick snow, and he falls through the open door with a groan and a gust of wind.

The cabin is not empty, as it should be. In fact, the cabin is quite warm already, and he’s so relieved by the sensation of _warmth_ on the bits of his exposed skin that he forgets to be surprised. There should be no one else here, after all, and he should have to be lighting the fire himself right now.

Shigeru kicks the door shut behind him after another particularly nasty gust. He stays still, otherwise, scanning the homey, cozy interior. Everything is painted in soft oranges, flickering shadows dancing as if to welcome him, and once his nose begins to thaw he thinks he smells _hot cocoa_. This could be a wet dream of his for how tired and cold he’d been.

But Kyoutani Kentarou, sitting cross-legged on the bed with an angry scowl and a wand pointed right at him, is certainly not part of that fantasy.

 

—

 

“This sucks,” Shigeru complains, holding his hands up in front of the fire.

“ _You’re_ the one who barged in, jackass,” Kentarou points out.

“This cabin is _mine_. I’ve been using it for four years, _by myself_ , I should add. No one else bothers getting their own iceheart blossoms!” It had been a niche market he’d been _very_ happy to monopolize. Shigeru is plenty talented with magic, with casting and building charms, but he likes potion making the best. A set list of ingredients with set measurements to add in a set order—wonderful.

But Tooru is a famous magus and that means Shigeru has to be, too.

But he still makes and sells potions and ingredients on the side. Tooru likes his eye for business.

“S’not _yours_ ,” Kentarou replies, and pulls another blanket around his shoulders. There is no shortage of blankets in the cabin, but Shigeru finds the fact that he’s sitting as far away as humanly possible to be childish. The cabin hasn’t fully warmed yet; Kentarou must have only beaten him by an hour at most.

“I’m Oikawa’s apprentice, aren’t I?” Shigeru asks and he cannot help the haughtiness in his voice. In this case, he doesn’t actually mean it, but being chosen as the great Oikawa Tooru’s apprentice has been a point of pride for too long.

“Who doesn’t know that,” Kentarou grumbles with a roll of his eyes. “You only shout it _all the fuckin’ time_.”

“It’s a big deal. And he’s letting me use this cabin, as he has been, and no one else should have the magic passwords to half the trails, much less the cabin itself.” Shigeru narrows his eyes at him. “So. Spill. How are you here, hm?”

“Class reunion,” Kentarou replies so flatly that Shigeru can’t actually believe he made a joke.

“You’re here to get iceheart blossoms.”

Kentarou levels a look at him. _Duh_ , it says, and Shigeru returns his attention to the fire to scowl.

The snowstorm outside insulates them. It’d take all their magic combined to make it back down the mountain without freezing to death or getting lost, and Shigeru doesn’t particularly want to waste the night, let alone the magic.

He side-eyes Kentarou’s wand, lying on the blankets beside him, within reach but not in his hand anymore.

He’d always meant to ask, back in school, why Kentarou still used a wand. Then, they’d gotten old enough that such questions weren’t polite anymore, and he wasn’t _that_ much of a jackass. It’s a personal problem. Just one that’s visible to anyone who looked twice at Kentarou.

When Kentarou catches him looking at his wand, he glares at him _again_ , and Shigeru rolls his eyes.

“We’re going to have to set some ground rules,” he announces.

Kentarou’s dark-rimmed eyes narrow to slits. “First rule— _I_ get the bed.”

“Hey! I almost froze to death out there, I deserve a warm bed, too!”

“Your fault for traveling so late,” Kentarou grunts.

Shigeru grits his teeth against his own snappy retort. He wants to argue. His pride demands he argue.

But Kentarou is _kind of_ right. Shigeru’s pride is what made him keep going, no matter how late it’d gotten, and he isn’t a weather mage. He’s actually not terribly skilled with any sort of temperature magic. But he had been too stubborn to give up the chance to get those stupid flowers, and he’d _assumed_ he’d be the only one here. No eyes to judge his mistake.

“We can’t spend the entire night snapping at each other,” Shigeru huffs instead. “We should try to avoid arguments.”

“Alright,” Kentarou easily agrees and, when he pulls more blankets up around his shoulders, he pulls his wand inside the cocoon, too. “So the second rule is that you don’t open your big mouth for the rest of the night.”

“I’d almost forgotten what a jackass you could be, you know that?” Shigeru says before he can stop himself.

Kentarou had always been _so quiet_ in classes. Angry, and prone to disappearances, and not friendly, but Shigeru knew enough to know that Kentarou wasn’t the one going around starting all the fights he seemed to find himself in every other day. But just because he’d been quiet and only half as much of a delinquent as his reputation made him seem didn’t mean he _couldn’t_ be mean.

Because he could be.

Usually in Shigeru’s direction.

“You’re the one who barged in here,” Kentarou reminds him.

“You still haven’t told me how _you_ even got in here,” Shigeru replies.

Kentarou turns his glower on the far wall. Shoulders hunched, cheeks maybe a bit pinkish, he admits, “Iwaizumi is the one who let me in.”

That makes an annoying amount of sense.

Kentarou continues, “I come out here in the summer sometimes, gathering shit and practicin’ shit. First time I’ve been here in the winter. Kinda pretty, in that rustic kinda way, but it’s a pain in the fuckin’ ass to get up here.”

“Lots of snow to trudge through,” Shigeru agrees. _Practicing, huh?_ Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he means by that, but the image of Kentarou holed away to try to practice his magic does strange things to him.

He can’t see it anymore, but he is uncomfortably aware of Kentarou’s wand underneath the blankets.

Iwaizumi is a talented magus in his own right. He teaches classes, from time to time—Shigeru has taken two, and sat in on a few others, along with Oikawa. Iwaizumi has offered advice and knowledge freely to everyone he’s ever met. Little surprise he’s tried to do the same for Kentarou.

“So then… It must be nice, out here, in the summer,” Shigeru awkwardly says. Too much time has passed. His thoughts must be obvious.

“Shitton of bugs,” Kentarou grunts, but kind of in agreement. “…You can see the stars real well, though. S’nice.”

“I’ll bet,” Shigeru says, grateful for the easy topic. “Last year, it wasn’t storming so badly, and I got to see the sky for about an hour while I was picking iceheart blossoms. It was breathtaking. Cold as hell, but breathtaking.”

Kentarou glances out the window; it’s mostly covered with snow, and what little they can see is still stormy and fierce.

“Guess no stars tonight, huh,” Shigeru adds.

“Guess not,” Kentarou mutters.

 

—

 

The moon won’t be at its highest point until about three in the morning. Shigeru _had_ planned on napping until he had to go back out into the cold, to warm himself back up and pass the time. The cabin is nice, and there is a bookshelf with both fiction and nonfiction and even a couple board games wedged in, but the fireplace isn’t the best light source. Shigeru has long since learned that reading by firelight is only going to give him a headache.

Which is a pity, because it’s a pretty aesthetic, and he likes to think he’d be the type of person to read books by firelight while all cozy in a picturesque cabin.

He glowers over at Kentarou, who is doing exactly that.

“Why’re you glarin’ at me this time?” Kentarou asks without looking up from his book.

It’s a manual on the basics of wandless casting.

Shigeru had thought it a bold move, to read it while practically _daring_ Shigeru to ask, but Kentarou has always been a pretty bold person. He’s never cared what Shigeru thought of him, and it’s never been more obvious than now.

“I can’t really read by firelight. I’m bored and you look _cozy_ on the bed.” Shigeru draws his knees up to his chest. Kentarou had grudgingly given up a blanket, and Shigeru knows he’ll talk him out of more if he’s _really_ going to be sleeping on the _floor_ , but the injustice still rankles him.

Kentarou spares him a sidelong glance.

“…There’s a deck of cards on the second shelf,” he says.

Shigeru opens his mouth to complain about how boring solitaire is.

Kentarou speaks faster, thankfully. “We can play somethin’, I guess. To soothe his majesty’s boredom.”

Shigeru will not point out that _Kentarou_ is the one who offered, because he doesn’t want that offer to be rescinded. He really is bored, and they have several more hours to wait, and Shigeru isn’t going to nap on the floor just to wake up sore and cold to trudge out into a snowstorm.

Cards sound way better.

“Alright!” He sounds a little too happy, when he pops up to his feet, but oh well.

“Thought all you fancy types just use magic to grab everything for you,” Kentarou says.

“That’s a huge waste of magic, and only good for showing off. I’m perfectly capable of taking three steps to grab a deck of cards.”

Based on the way Kentarou regards him, Shigeru guesses that he’s recalling some memory where Shigeru had definitely shown off and used magic for some simple task.

It’s not like he _hasn’t_ done it. He shows off a little, from time to time, and he would admit it if pressed.

“Look, we still have to go fight a snowstorm for some fragile flowers in a few hours, and who knows how dangerous that could actually be. I might show off, too, but I’m not dumb,” Shigeru declares and plops back down into his spot nearest the fire. He gives him a challenging look. “I’m taking this seriously, but before I take this seriously, let’s play some dumb card games.”

Kentarou makes a sound that _could_ have been a laugh when he sits down across from him.

Despite his uncertainty at exactly what sort of noise it had been, Shigeru thinks he liked it.

 

—

 

“The snow still looks terrible,” Shigeru says, fretting by the window. They have around half an hour before they should set out, but with the weather as bad as it is, maybe sooner. Shigeru doesn’t look forward to it. They’re both going to freeze their asses off, and then fight the entire time over whatever iceheart blossoms they find, and then have to make it back to the cabin. Where there is only one bed and Shigeru does not get to crawl into it.

Kentarou begins pulling on his snow pants. Shigeru sighs and joins him.

Shigeru flings an extra pair of earmuffs at Kentarou’s head, and Kentarou tries to strangle him with his scarf, but no one dies before they’re ready to head out. It’s unspoken that they’ll walk together; neither of them are so irrationally angry with the other that they’ll risk getting lost out there.

They’re just too proud to say it aloud.

Kentarou finishes lacing up his boots, and Shigeru can’t help but watch. He’d had trouble with his own, trying to tighten them with his thick gloves still on, but Kentarou doesn’t have gloves on. It doesn’t look as if he even brought any.

Wands need to touch skin to work, but Shigeru hadn’t quite thought out the logistics of that as far as wandering around in the middle of the night in a snowstorm.

“What’re you staring at?” Kentarou grunts. From his dark expression, Shigeru knows that Kentarou knows exactly what he’s staring at.

“You could at least bring a pair of gloves to wear on the way back down,” Shigeru replies, quietly, and as politely as he can.

Kentarou shrugs when he stands. “Didn’t think it out that far, and I’d thought I’d be havin’ to defend myself from shit both ways.”

There are extra earmuffs and another scarf in the cabin, but no extra gloves. Shigeru may be trying to be a nice person—he fancies himself a nice person in general, except when Kentarou gets gruff and prickly for no reason—but like hell he’s going to sacrifice his own pair.

Shigeru sighs and grabs Kentarou’s bare hands. Kentarou goes rigid, and tries to tug his hands free, but Shigeru holds him firm. “I’m giving you a warming spell,” he tells him, “so don’t squirm too much. It’ll stop you from losing fingers to frostbite, at least.”

Kentarou says nothing, and he watches with a strange expression as Shigeru casts his magic over his exposed skin. He tries to tuck it up into his sleeves as best he can, and he drags his magic down each and every finger, not leaving anything up to chance. Shigeru is used to casting on himself and others, both for practice and for use, but he wonders now how often Kentarou deals with others’ magic.

“Thought you weren’t gonna waste the magic,” Kentarou murmurs, only after Shigeru is done.

“This isn’t a waste.”

“Huh.”

Shigeru scoffs and tries to reach for some haughty arrogance he doesn’t really have. “I’m supposed to do good unto others, right? That means _not_ letting you freeze your fingers off, even though you’d stealing _my_ flowers on _my_ night.”

“S’not _yours_ ,” Kentarou snaps and finally pushes past Shigeru.

Outside, the wind is still howling and snow is still falling. But it is no longer the pretty, fluffy flakes of before; now, it pelts at them like nails, stinging and sharp. Shigeru immediately pulls his furred hood down as low as he can without blinding himself. Their boots crunch on the hard crust of snow, and at least it seems as if it’ll support their weight for now.

Shigeru catches Kentarou flexing his fingers a few times, marveling at the heat magic, and he allows himself a smidge of pride.

Iceheart blossoms live closer to the top of the mountain, in a particular clearing. It’s a clear path up, even with the snow everywhere, but it’s not easy going. Every few steps, someone’s foot breaks through the icy crust on top of the snow, and Shigeru almost loses a boot at one point. His sock wriggles down to the toe of his shoe, too, to add insult to injury.

 _With the storm, at least nothing else should be out_ , he thinks, though he doesn’t allow himself to relax. Ice goblins exist, and with the wind whipping at them and the trees looking so stark against the white of all the snow, he can’t tell himself that the old ghost stories of snow demons are entirely untrue, either. Stories meant to scare children and keep them inside on cold nights, but there is always a seed of truth in such stories, right?

An imagination is good for practicing magic, especially doing it well, but he’s probably getting carried away with himself.

Kentarou would probably laugh at him if he could see how wound up Shigeru was getting himself.

Surprisingly, the wind dies down the farther they climb. It is still too overcast to see any stars or the moon, sadly enough, but the snow turns back into something pretty and fluffy, so that is nice enough. It makes for harder walking, but they’re almost there. And it’s easier to blow loose snow off flowers than having to use an ice pick.

Both are out of breath (and trying to hide it from the other) by the time they reach the clearing. The wind has died completely, and the thick snow falls straight down.

The iceheart blossoms glow beneath a layer of delicate fluff.

“Woah,” Kentarou whispers, breath puffing out in a cloud in front of his mouth.

“First time seeing them?” Shigeru asks, and he can’t help but feel a little proud of that. Not that these have been his secret, but that _he_ is the one who gets to show them off.

Wonder looks kind of good on Kentarou, anyway.

He falls to his knees in front of the nearest flower, scooping snow away with surprising gentleness.

“You’ll want to cut it with a—”

“I _know_ ,” Kentarou interrupts without anger. He pulls a little switchblade out of his pocket, shows it to Shigeru with a flat look, then cuts the flower. It sprinkles bluish, glittering dust over him, and Kentarou wrinkles his nose at that.

“Gloves help with that, too,” Shigeru can’t help but tell him. “You’ll be glowing for a _week_.”

With a swipe of his wand, Kentarou flings a snowball straight into Shigeru’s face.

Shigeru is too shocked to even wipe it off; it slides off a moment later, collecting in his scarf and the inside of his hood. “You. Did. _Not_.”

“Whoops. My wand slipped.”

With a gesture of his own, Shigeru dumps an entire armful of snow onto Kentarou’s head. He takes off running, then, because he knows retribution is going to be swift and merciless. Sure enough, he hardly ducks under another snowball, and ends up tripping in the thick snow before he can make it to the other side of the clearing.

Kentarou buries him with more snow, until Shigeru is kicking and gasping and _laughing_. He hates that he’s laughing. He should be swearing (well, he is, too). But even Kentarou is actually grinning, cheeks rosy with cold and wet with melting snow.

Shigeru wishes he’d known as a teenager that all it took for Kentarou to act human was a snowball fight.

They lapse from magic to making snowballs themselves pretty quickly, but that drops off just as quickly; it’s still uncomfortably cold out, and they’re getting snow in places neither want snow. Shigeru has stripped off his hat and hood, trying to get snow out of his hair and off the back of his neck, and he catches sight of Kentarou jamming his bare hands up into the sleeves of his coat to try to warm them back up.

Shigeru opens his mouth to comment, but a _roar_ interrupts him.

He whirls around so fast he almost loses his balance again in the snow. His lantern, lying discarded in the middle of the clearing, is too far to be much help, but he doesn’t need much light to realize what looms over them now: an ice elemental.

It glowers down at them with bright eyes, and shakes its shaggy, icicle-laden fur once before roaring at them again.

Shigeru is closer to it, and he scrambles backward, trying to do mental calculations. Elementals are supposed to be easy—it’s like rock paper scissors to beat them—but this is a sizeable ice elemental in the middle of a snowstorm on an equally snowy mountain. Does he have enough magic to make _that_ much fire?

And it’s foolish of him, but for a precious second, he does worry that the iceheart blossoms would die if he were to try.

But the ice elemental lunges at him, and there’s no time to worry. Shigeru allows himself to fall backward, catching himself in the snow, and brings up both hands to throw fire upward. The monster screams and sizzles, but its own bulk keeps it moving forward.

It splatters water on them like blood from a gushing wound, and Shigeru has to cut off his fire and roll out of the way to avoid getting stepped on.

Kentarou, on the elemental’s other side, flings flames like a whip at it. He lashes into it, melting it piece by piece, but too slowly.

It swipes at him with a still-massive paw, then rounds on Shigeru.

“We’re sorry!” he tries, ducking under its slash. One icicle claw nearly catches his scarf, and after the near-brush with death, he unwinds it from his neck entirely. “We just wanted the iceheart blossoms! We will leave your mountain in—”

The ice elemental catches him with another paw, and Shigeru goes flying.

He lands heavily against a tree. The snow and ice burn at his exposed skin, and his back hurts from the impact, but he still has magic to—literally—burn. At least he’d tried reasoning with it. A long shot, but he can tell Oikawa after all is said and done that he’d _tried_.

Kentarou isn’t _bad_ with magic, but he’s relying heavily on the most basic of spells. A whip of flames, a shield of earth, a gust of wind to help him dodge. With all of the snow still around them, the ice elemental is steadily rebuilding itself.

Just when Shigeru is about to call over that they ought to retreat, Kentarou’s wand gets knocked out of his hand.

He cradles his hit arm to his chest, face pinched in pain, and Shigeru loses sight of his wand at once as it falls amongst all of the loose snow.

He pushes the ice elemental back with the strongest blast of fire he can conjure without endangering Kentarou, then makes a break for him. The monster reels back, roaring and spraying steaming water everywhere, and Shigeru nearly runs into Kentarou before he can stop himself.

“Are you alright?! Your wand—!”

“S’fine,” Kentarou growls. “We need to go.”

Shigeru stares at him, uncomprehending. “Your _wand_ ,” he repeats. He hasn’t yet figured out how they’ll find a wand while fighting an ice elemental in the middle of a dark, snowy mountain, but they _will_. Somehow.

The icy monster rears up behind them again, but Kentarou pushes Shigeru down by the shoulder, and _blasts_ magic over his head.

Half of the ice elemental splashes onto ground by the sheer power of it. Shigeru knows it hadn’t been fire magic—it had looked more like an actual _explosion_ than anything else.

Even as he straightens, Shigeru can’t help but stare, mouth agape.

“We should run for it,” Kentarou says, and shoves him in the direction of the path. “I don’t care about that wand, I can get another. Don’t wanna see you splattered over the mountainside, though.”

“You can _cast_?” Shigeru asks. He sounds far too betrayed and affronted and insulted, all things considered. “I mean—you don’t need a wand?! What the hell, Kyoutani?!”

The ice elemental roars again, and Kentarou _glares_ at him. Shigeru gives up with a huff and a roll of his eyes. Another time, then.

With Kentarou still cradling his arm to his chest, Shigeru stands at the edge of the clearing, and tries to spot the straightest line down. It isn’t very far, but it’s far enough to get them a lead, and he melts enough of the snow to create a makeshift slide for them.

Kentarou pushes him down it before Shigeru can ask if they’re ready.

The ice elemental does not follow them, once they get out of its territory, and although they _both_ end up in a heap in a snowdrift halfway down the path, they’re both in one piece and not too worse for wear.

They trudge the rest of the way back to the cabin in surly silence.

 

—

 

 _He can do magic without a wand?_ Shigeru thinks for the umpteenth time, side-eyeing him. Yet again, he’s uncomfortably cold and uncomfortably damp, with as many clothes as he feels comfortable losing hanging up to dry around the interior. Kentarou is in a similar state. They are both in front of the fire, but as far from each other as they can manage.

It feels like two steps back for their one step forward.

“I’ll get it in the morning,” Kentarou says, out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

“I’ll go back and get my wand in the morning. The thing should be gone by then,” he explains, even more gruffly, and he glares into the fireplace. “…Thanks for carin’, I guess, but it was real shitty timing.”

“I thought you were about to die,” Shigeru blankly replies. “You—you can do magic on your own! Why do you even _have_ a wand, then?!”

So much for trying to remain tactfully silent. Why does Kentarou’s presence always make his mouth work faster than his brain?

Kentarou glares at him out of the corner of his eye. His eyeliner’s gotten ten kinds of smeared around by the snow and water, and he looks even scarier now. Shigeru does not balk, but sets his jaw and meets his glare with his own.

“Can’t control it that well,” Kentarou replies through gritted teeth. “Always been shit at magic. Which _you_ know, so there. I admitted it. Happy now?”

“No, I… I just thought that you needed the wand.” Which sort of implied a significant lack of skill with magic, yes.

“I come up here to practice on my own, without hurtin’ anyone else. Why else would I spend so much time alone in the goddamned woods?”

“I like the solitude here, when I visit,” Shigeru defensively replies.

Kentarou grunts and says nothing else.

“I’m sorry. I made assumptions, and I didn’t mean to come off as high and mighty—”

“As usual.”

“Let me _finish_ , would you? You’re so rude.”

“And you’re prissy.”

Shigeru flings a wet glove at him. Kentarou’s glare somehow gets even worse, promising a swift death, but Shigeru’s own annoyance acts as courage. “I’m sorry. There. No strings attached,” he says, and childishly, wonders if he ought to stick his tongue out, too. He nobly restrains himself. “I think it’s really nice that you’re practicing on your own, but… magic is all about learning from others. You’re not going to get too far by yourself.”

“Iwaizumi’s helped. Couple of times.”

“He teaches classes, you know.”

“Can’t afford ‘em.” And no doubt too proud to explain himself, either.

Shigeru chews on his tongue for a long moment, figuring out if he _really_ wants to say what he is about to.

“I mean… _I_ could teach you. A bit. I’m learning from Oikawa—Iwaizumi too, sometimes—and I’m pretty good at magic.”

“And you’re cheaper,” Kentarou replies, hardly a question.

“Don’t call me cheap when I’m trying to do you a favor. I was _going_ to say, you’re the only one who ended up with an iceheart blossom between us, and I’ll teach you if you give it to me.” Nevermind the fact that he doubts Kentarou preserved it properly, and it probably got crumpled to all hell in that fight, and he can’t do anything with a single blossom. Kentarou doesn’t need to know these things.

There is something still decidedly wary about Kentarou’s posture and expression, but at least he doesn’t look as if he’ll actually snap Shigeru’s head off in a moment.

“They’re valuable,” Shigeru adds.

“…Yeah, well, why would I wanna learn from _you_?” Kentarou replies, but his frame relaxes, and no longer does he seem quite so prickly.

“Didn’t you hear anything I just said?! I’m _good_.”

“Got your ass handed to you by an _elemental_.”

“So did you!”

“I’m shit at magic, remember?” Kentarou points out with a smirk equal parts smug and attractive. He wears confidence _annoyingly_ well.

Shigeru pushes him over with a flick of his finger and a burst of magic.

 

—

 

Neither of them end up in the bed.

Shigeru helps him bandage his hand, with the minimal amount of speaking possible; their proximity is distracting and the way the iceheart blossom's glow sticks to Kentarou's fingernails makes Shigeru want to hold his hand a little bit longer. 

Kentarou _does_ offer the bed to Shigeru, maybe in gratitude, but Shigeru is too proud to take it as an act of _charity_ , and of course that means that Kentarou refuses to take it, too. They both end up in a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor in front of the fireplace, glaring at each other from their respective cocoons.

It’s not a good sleep, but at least they’re warm, and at some point during the dark hours of the morning, Kentarou ends up wriggling across the floor to stick his cold feet into Shigeru’s own pile of blankets. It’s a rude awakening, but at least it gives him fodder to tease him for the rest of the day.

The morning turns out over-bright and sparkling. There is not a cloud in the pink sky when they peek their heads out of the cabin. The snow is nearly up to the windows, their path from the night before largely obscured by fresh snowfall, but it’s _pretty_ out and Shigeru stops to take a few pictures on his phone while Kentarou huffs.

Getting dressed again is awkward, but no less awkward than anything else—and _definitely_ no less awkward than the moment when Kentarou realizes they’re both headed _up_ the mountain.

“The hell are you goin’?” he asks, eyes narrowed to slits.

“I’m going to help you look for your wand.”

“Why.”

“Because as your new _teacher_ —”

Shigeru doesn’t understand how Kentarou can scoop up and throw a snowball so fast without the aid of magic.

He’s still sort of draggy from the night before, and he never likes running totally on empty, but he _definitely_ has enough magic to continue their fight.

“Thanks,” Kentarou says, just as Shigeru is about to pelt him with more snow. He won’t make eye contact, and his cheeks are too red for it to be from the cold _already_.

Shigeru blinks at him, processing.

“I guess you’re only half as much of a jackass as I thought,” Kentarou adds, and begins trudging back up the mountain.

Shigeru lobs the snowball at the back of his head, and feels no small amount of pride in the clean hit. Since he ignored Kentarou’s fluster, he decides to ignore the way his own chest feels warm, too, at such _sincerity_ from Kentarou.

Something else he can tease him about, later.  


End file.
